Rewriting Targaryen History

Chapter 72: Chapter 72: Subtle Changes

Two weeks had passed since my meeting with Viserys, and the mood of the court began to shift.

Not greatly. King’s Landing did not change like weather over an open sea. It changed like rot beneath floorboards, slowly enough that a careless man might mistake the smell for imagination until his foot went through the wood. The court still smiled. The servants still bowed. The same ladies gathered near the same windows, and the same lords leaned over the same cups of wine while pretending not to listen for treason in ordinary conversation.

Yet the shape of attention had changed.

The first cause was Rhaenyra’s pregnancy.

Viserys was delighted by the news. For an afternoon, the years seemed to lift from him. He spoke of cradles, names, dragon eggs, and whether the child might favour Rhaenyra’s colouring or mine, as if the realm had offered him a gift uncomplicated by succession.

Secretly, I thought he prayed for a granddaughter. He had grandsons enough to fill a nursery with noise, but no little girl to spoil, dote upon, and call peace made flesh because he needed to believe peace could still be born into his family.

Otto and Alicent offered their congratulations with perfect courtesy. That perfection told me little. Alicent’s face remained composed, and Otto’s smile carried the mild warmth of a man admiring a harvest while already calculating where the grain might be stored, taxed, or burned.

Other courtiers followed quickly, eager to celebrate where celebration was safe. Some were sincere. Some were simply talented at sounding sincere in rooms where the King was happy.

Still, the news was received well enough.

The second cause was the announcement of the betrothals. Jacaerys would one day wed Baela. Lucerys would one day wed Rhaena.

The offer had been received better than I expected, though perhaps I should have trusted the sense of it more. Daemon, according to Rhaenyra, had accepted the idea with the expression of a man who had been waiting for slower minds to arrive at an obvious road.

Rhaenys had smiled so warmly that Rhaenyra admitted it unsettled her more than anger would have. Corlys had been pleased in the direct way ambitious men allowed themselves to be when ambition wore the clothing of family.

Baela would be a future queen, Rhaena would be bound to Dragonstone, and Velaryon blood would sit close enough to the Iron Throne that even Vaemond would struggle to sneer without choking on his own envy.

Viserys was happier still.

He believed the betrothals were the first sign that Driftmark’s wound was closing. In his mind, the children had fought, the adults had raged, grief had drawn blood, and now marriage would begin stitching the torn edges back together. It was an innocent thought. It was also dangerously naive.

The rift between Alicent’s children and mine had not healed. It had merely learned to behave in front of adults.

Helaena remained kind in her strange, drifting way. She would sit with little Viserys and entertain him with stories that began with beetles, wandered through drowned moons, and ended somewhere no maester would dare place on a map. Viserys liked her because she spoke to him as if he understood everything, which children often found more flattering than adults realised.

Daeron was kinder still. He sought out Jacaerys and Lucerys in the yard, not with the hunger of a boy trying to beat enemies bloody, but with the bright competitiveness of someone who thought rivalry could still be clean. He enjoyed winning, disliked losing, and accepted instruction with less sulking than most boys of noble birth.

Aemond kept to himself.

That worried me more than open hostility would have. A child who shouted gave away the shape of his wound. A child who trained in silence learned to make the wound useful. Since Driftmark, Aemond had worn his eye patch like a banner and his new bond with Vhagar like armour no one could see. He spent hours with Ser Curtis Crakehall, drilling until sweat darkened his tunic and his jaw locked against exhaustion. Pain had not softened him. It had given him direction.

Aegon remained much the same as before. He was not especially cruel to my sons, though kindness would have required more interest than he possessed. He treated them as pieces in whatever amusement the day offered, the way he treated servants, younger children, and most consequences. Driftmark had changed the court around him more than it had changed him.

Of Alicent’s children, Daeron was the only one who took a real interest in me.

He did not look at me as a monster, no matter what lessons might have been whispered near him. To him, I was a fighter, a commander, and the man who had brought foreign soldiers into Westerosi stories. That was enough to make a boy curious before caution could make him dutiful.

One morning, he found me near the edge of the training yard while Jacaerys and Lucerys were finishing their lesson with Ser Arryk. Daeron approached with bright eyes and a wooden practice sword held too tightly in one hand.

"Prince Othorion," he said, barely remembering to bow before excitement carried him forward, "would you spar with me when you have time? Ser Curtis says I am improving, but he does not fight like you, and I want to know how different it feels."

The request was so earnest that for a moment I forgot whose son he was. "I can make time for one bout," I said. "But if we do this, you will treat it as a lesson rather than a chance to prove you can defeat a grown man before breakfast."

Daeron’s face lit as if I had promised him a dragon. "I know I cannot defeat you yet, but I would like to see how long I can last before you make that obvious."

"That is a more honest ambition than most knights bring into a yard."

He grinned, and within minutes we had sparring swords in hand.

Daeron was not half bad for a boy of nearly nine. He understood the basic shape of attack and defence. He did not overreach as often as Aegon had at that age, and he had enough sense to know his body could not force a larger opponent back by pride alone.

His footwork was still too eager, his shoulders tightened before he struck, and he looked at the place he meant to hit a heartbeat before moving. Those were ordinary mistakes, and better boys than him had kept worse ones for longer.

He came at me with a diagonal cut. I let him commit to it, stepped aside, and turned my practice sword across his line. His balance broke. A gentle push to the chest sent him to the dirt.

Daeron landed with a grunt, then stared up at me in offended amazement. "You announced that strike with your eyes before your sword moved," I said. "A polite enemy might ignore that. A useful enemy will punish it."

He climbed to his feet and brushed dust from his sleeve. "Then I will try not to be so polite with my face."

"That would be wise. Your face is doing too much of your strategy."

He attacked again, this time lower, and lasted a little longer before I tapped his wrist and turned him aside. The third exchange ended with his sword angled too far from his body. The fourth ended when he forgot his feet while trying to be clever with his hands. Each time he fell or stumbled, he rose with more determination than resentment.

That was rare. Many noble boys wanted victory more than instruction. Daeron wanted both, but he was still young enough to believe the second might lead honestly to the first.

After several bouts, I lowered my sword before his pride could outlast his strength. "You have done enough for one morning," I said. "A tired boy learns bad habits faster than good ones, and I would rather not have Ser Curtis blame me for ruining his student."

Daeron was breathing hard, but he stood straighter at the compliment hidden inside the warning. "Do you think I am improving properly?"

"You fight well for your age," I said. "Your instincts are sound, but you must stop thinking speed can repair poor balance. A sword does not care how brave you feel if your feet have betrayed you."

He bowed his head, pleased enough to try hiding it. "Thank you, Prince Othorion. I hope one day I can be a skilled warrior like Ser Curtis, or like you."

That hurt more than it should have.

Daeron was only a boy. Kind, eager, still soft around the edges in ways the Red Keep would eventually sharpen if left too long against stone. Yet within a decade, if the world followed even half the road I feared, he would be asked to fight for his brother’s claim. He would mount Tessarion not as a child seeking praise in a yard, but as a prince sent to war.

"You should first hope to become wise enough not to need the sword as often as men praise it," I said.

Daeron considered that with the seriousness children sometimes gave to words they did not yet understand. "Ser Curtis says a prince must be ready to fight because enemies do not care whether he wanted peace."

"Ser Curtis is not wrong," I said. "But readiness and hunger are different things. Learn the blade because the world may force it into your hand. Do not love it so much that you reach for it before the world has finished speaking."

He nodded slowly. "I think I understand some of that."

"Some is enough for today."

News of our friendly duel reached Alicent before supper.

She did not rage at me. She did not accuse me of overstepping, nor did she scold me in public for entertaining her son. That would have been too direct, and Alicent had learned from Otto that directness was often what desperate people mistook for strength.

Instead, Daeron was sent away.

The decision came wrapped in suitable language. He would become a ward of Lord Hobert Hightower in Oldtown. He would be educated among kin, trained in a great city of learning and faith, and given the kind of southern polish that court could later call refinement. It was all reasonable enough that protest would sound like suspicion.

That was how the Hightowers preferred their cages.

It made sense in the broad shape of history. Daeron had been sent away in the world I remembered, and perhaps Alicent would have made the same choice regardless of me. Still, the timing was too neat to ignore. Soon after he sparred with me, soon after he looked at me with admiration instead of fear, his mother removed him from my reach.

Alicent needed her children to understand me as a threat. Otto needed them to inherit the fear he had cultivated. Daeron’s kindness made him ill-suited to hatred, and so he was taken somewhere that kindness could be disciplined into loyalty before it became sympathy.

Part of me was glad for him.

Oldtown would spare him the worst of King’s Landing’s daily poison. He would grow among maesters, septons, Hightower knights, and the polished weight of one of the oldest cities in the realm. He might become capable, courteous, learned, skilled with sword and lute alike.

But I could not shake the image of those kind eyes across a battlefield.

With Daeron gone, Jacaerys and Lucerys lost the only prince who had treated sparring as sport rather than rehearsal for future grievance. That absence changed the yard more than I expected.

Aegon rarely cared enough to attend with discipline. Aemond trained apart, his focus too sharp to be mistaken for companionship. Helaena did not belong in that world of blunted steel and shouted correction.

So the Cargyll twins became more important.

Ser Arryk and Ser Erryk had begun teaching my sons a few times each week. The boys were still clumsy, as children should be at the beginning of anything difficult. Jacaerys listened carefully and corrected himself with visible frustration when his body failed to match instruction. Lucerys had quicker hands but less confidence, retreating too early when pressed and looking toward Jace when uncertain. Both had inherited some small measure of my martial instincts, but instinct without training was little more than a spark looking for dry grass.

The twins did well with them.

Ser Arryk was firmer, more inclined to correct posture, grip, and discipline before allowing the boys to enjoy themselves. Ser Erryk had a gentler manner, though that gentleness hid a sharp eye.

He noticed when Luke flinched at sudden movement near his face and adjusted the lesson without making the boy feel exposed. He noticed when Jace tried to hide pain because he thought heirs were not supposed to wince.

That won my respect. Slowly, it began to win theirs.

At first, the twins treated me with careful courtesy. They were honoured to teach the boys, especially once they learned I had asked for them by name, but honour did not erase caution.

They expected some attempt at purchase. Men in the Red Keep often mistook trust for a thing that could be bought with favour, coin, or future promises. I had enough influence and hidden wealth to make such an attempt believable.

I did not make one.

I watched when appropriate. I thanked them plainly. I asked after the boys’ progress without trying to turn the answers into secret pledges. When corrections were given, I did not undermine them in front of my sons.

When Jace complained that Ser Arryk made him repeat footwork until his calves burned, I told him princes did not outrank balance. When Luke asked if Ser Erryk thought him cowardly for stepping back too often, I told him fear was not cowardice unless it was allowed to give orders.

That did more than coin would have.

The twins began to understand that I wanted them as teachers before I wanted them as pieces on a board. That distinction mattered to men whose vows had already been pulled at by factions pretending not to tug.

I heard, briefly, that Otto had tried to suggest Ser Curtis Crakehall as instructor for all the royal boys together. Viserys refused before the matter could grow legs. That told me something important.

The King might still dream of unity, but even he understood that placing Lucerys beneath Ser Curtis’s instruction after Driftmark would not heal anything. It would be cruelty disguised as reconciliation.

Otto noticed the Cargylls.

The thought of me gaining the trust of two more Kingsguard knights concerned him. Not because Arryk and Erryk had sworn themselves to Rhaenyra. They had not. Their honour still belonged, officially and sincerely, to the white cloak. But trust did not need to be treason to become useful.

A knight who trusted my sons was less likely to believe the worst story told about them. A knight who respected me was harder to turn with whispers. A knight who had seen Luke tremble through lessons after Driftmark could not easily accept that he was some blood-hungry little monster waiting to strike again.

Otto could not dismiss them.

Even if he gained more influence over the Lord Commander in time, removing healthy and loyal Kingsguard knights would draw attention. The white cloaks were not household guards to be exchanged whenever a faction wished for cleaner obedience. Ser Curtis Crakehall had already shown what a partisan sword in white could look like. Too many such swords too quickly would make even cautious men ask questions.

So Otto watched. Alicent withdrew Daeron. Aemond trained harder.

The Cargyll twins kept teaching my sons.

None of these changes were dramatic enough for singers. No raven carried the news as triumph. No lord raised a banner because Ser Erryk corrected Lucerys’s grip, or because Ser Arryk told Jacaerys that determination was not a substitute for proper stance.

Yet the Red Keep was made of such things. Glances. Lessons. Appointments. Absences. Trust gained slowly enough that enemies could not openly attack it without admitting why they feared it.

For the first time since Driftmark, I felt less isolated in the capital. Not safe. King’s Landing would never be that.

But less alone.